“Anything?” Deck asked quietly.

Tracy looked up from her reception desk, where she was monitoring incoming e-mail from the company’s main, untampered-with computer, coordinating the arrival times of the remaining Troubleshooters, and still trying to unearth operative PJ Prescott, who was nowhere to be found.

Decker had come up less than dry with his latest call to Commander Koehl. Not only were the SWCCs unable to come save the day, but the TS team was going to lose most of their SEALs, too. Everyone but Lopez—who’d recently had a surgical procedure on an old injury to his shoulder, yet hadn’t mentioned it to anyone—was being called back in and going wheels-up, which meant they were getting on an airplane and leaving the country.

The commander was heading overseas, too, but not for a few more days. Because of their lack of manpower, Koehl himself was coming to join the search for Dave. Not that the TS Inc. team was actually in a position yet to do any physical searching. But they had a lead—a former Agency support staffer named Russell Stafford.

And Jo Heissman had finally made herself useful. She remembered Stafford quite well from their shared years at the Agency.

Relatively slight of stature, he was somewhat rotund, with thinning hair and glasses. Not exactly the monster Tracy had been imagining.

Jo had told them that Stafford was quiet. The times she’d met him, he’d stayed in the background. Like some support staff members, he seemed disdainful and resentful of the field agents, which made him unpleasant to be around. Jo reported that she herself had felt uncomfortable with him, and avoided him whenever possible.

“Most of the times I encountered him,” the doctor told them, “he was with his boss, Matt Hallfield—who had a very large personality and cared a great deal about his staff’s allegiance. I always assumed Stafford’s unswerving loyalty was the reason they were inseparable.”

Stafford was loyal until—if Tess’s theory was correct—Hallfield discovered Stafford’s embezzlement and treason, at which point Stafford killed his boss, making it appear to be a suicide.

Monsters, Jo had reminded Tracy, came in all shapes and sizes.

Her physical description of Stafford was invaluable information, but best of all, Jo was able to provide a list of other operatives Stafford had worked with, particularly from 1999 until 2001.

Tess was taking that information and digging to find out if any of the men—and they were all men—on Jo’s list had also left the Agency around the same time Stafford did.

Sooner or later they were going to find the information that would lead them to Dave, and when they did? Tracy was making damn sure that they’d have enough operatives to help break him free.

“Nothing yet,” she told Decker now as she glanced at the clock. “But it’s only been a half hour.”

They’d used her laptop—the one that Michael had compromised—to send a message to Stafford and the other men who’d kidnapped Dave and wanted Nash dead.

Alyssa, Jules, and Decker had all agreed that the best approach was to write an e-mail as if it were from Sophia: I don’t know who you are, or why you’ve taken Dave. I do know it has something to do with James Nash—who is not dead as we’d all believed. He is in hiding—I don’t know where. I am not any kind of operative—I work client interface at TS Inc. But I am Dave’s fiancée. If you can guarantee his safe return, I will find out whatever you want to know.

The consensus was that Stafford and Michael—it was hard to think of him as Gavin Michaelson, which apparently was his real name—would respond by telling Sophia they were interested in nothing less than a direct trade. Nash for Dave.

Not that anyone on this side of the battle was willing to do that. But “Sophia” would attempt to negotiate. She’d ask for proof of life.

And Tess would analyze each e-mail they received, which would perhaps give the Troubleshooters team additional information to help them track down Dave.

Who was not only desperately ill, but probably being tortured.

That was the only certain thing they knew—that Dave Malkoff needed rescue, fast.

“I hate this,” Tracy told Decker now. “I keep thinking about Dave and wondering...” If he were locked in some basement somewhere. Having been locked in a basement by a psycho who’d wanted to harm her, she was feeling extra anxious. But she shook her head, forced a smile. “What can I get you?”

He looked a little surprised. “Nothing,” he said. “I, um, brought you coffee?”

She looked down, and indeed, he’d set a mug—the one with the smiley face—on her desk.

“You never have it the same way,” he added, “so I thought I’d let you...” He’d brought her a few packets of both sugar and sweetener, and a couple of those tiny milk containers, too.

It was so unbelievably sweet.

Or maybe it was her consolation prize. He had, after all, just spent a long, long time with Sophia in the ladies’ room. Hey, honey, I brought you coffee and wanted to let you know that I’m marrying Sophia. Thanks for the great sex. See you around.

“What, no scone?” she asked him.

He laughed at that, the worry-grooves at the corners of his eyes turning into laughter lines. She felt her heart lurch as she lost herself in the warmth of his eyes.

“Yeah, no scone,” he told her. “Even if we had any, why would I bring you something I know you don’t like?”

“Yeah, I was just stalling,” she admitted.

“Stalling?” He was either the best actor in the world, or he really didn’t understand.

“You’re not here with bad news?” she asked.

“No, just coffee,” he said. “And...”

Here it came.

He leaned closer. Lowered his voice. “I wanted to make sure that you knew it wasn’t your fault,” he said. “The thing with Gavin Michaelson.”

After spending that long, long time in the ladies’ room with Decker, Sophia had looked at Tracy’s photo and had identified Michael-Peter-Gavin as one of the men from the elevator who’d shot Ken Karmody and was probably, right now, torturing Dave. Tess had chimed in with the information that Michaelson had, at one time, worked as an Agency operative, but had left after being marked as too reckless, too unreliable, too unpredictable, and, oh yeah, possibly too psychotic. He was described in his file as vengeful and amoral. Remorseless and erratic. Off-balanced and unstable.

And at that final confirmation of her own naive stupidity in dating the man in the first place, Tracy had escaped into the very same ladies’ room to cry.

She’d only been gone for maybe ninety seconds—just long enough to grieve and rage in private and then splash some cool water onto her face. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, so there’d been nothing to fix after her tears. She’d come right back out.

She’d thought no one had seen her. Apparently, she was wrong. And now she was going to cry again, for an entirely different reason.

Decker had brought her coffee—and comfort.

“You were conned,” he now reminded her.

“Deck, I slept with this guy,” Tracy said.

“No you didn’t,” he said quietly. “You slept with Michael. Who turned out to not be real. That’s what you should be upset about. That your perfect man was an act.”

She had to smile at that. “Perfect, except for the part where he moved to Maine. That sucked.”

He smiled, too. “Perfection’s overrated, anyway. If he was real, you’d’ve been bored in a month. No one to argue with.”

“I don’t argue. I just sometimes disagree.”

“Vehemently,” he said.

“Passionately,” she corrected him again, and ooh, there it was. That look in his eyes that promised passion, indeed. But they couldn’t go there, not here at her reception desk, out in the front lobby, although that was a lovely fantasy. Besides, he was listening—really listening—to her, so she told him the main reason she’d gone into the bathroom to cry.

“I feel as if I let Jimmy and the entire company down,” she admitted. “I was such an easy target. I didn’t ask enough questions, I didn’t—”

“It didn’t matter,” Deck said with that absoluteness that she loved so much. “He would have figured out a way to play you, regardless of that. Don’t beat yourself up for something that you didn’t have the training to guard against. You’re not going to make that same mistake again. And that picture you took? It’s been vital.”

She sighed. “I guess. I just keep thinking about Dave.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “I do, too. Bad memories, huh?”

Tracy nodded. “I know what it’s like to face this near-certainty that no one’s going to find you and...” She knew precisely what it felt like to feel death’s inevitable shadow and yet still hope and pray that help was on its way.

“We found you,” Decker told her. “And we’re going to find Dave. Weren’t you the one who said you had faith?”

She smiled at that. “In you.”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “It’s kind of crazy how much I love hearing you say that.”

Love.

He leaned closer, and speaking of crazy, for several totally insane seconds, Tracy was convinced that Deck was going to kiss her, right there in the front lobby. True, they were alone, but...

“Deck.” It was Jules. “Whoops, sorry, but it’s important.”

“No.” Decker straightened up. “I was, um...” He cleared his throat. “What’s up?”

“Yashi called,” the FBI agent said. “We’ve got an address for Gavin Michaelson. And we have good reason to believe that Dave is there.”

Alyssa and Jules didn’t have to include him in the decision-making process. But Decker was grateful that they had. He stood with them at the front of the conference room as they laid out their plan—as vague as it was with their limited intel.

Limited intel, and seriously limited manpower.

“Sam will lead the take-down with Decker as his XO,” Alyssa had decided as Decker looked around the table. They had only a single SEAL for this op—Lopez. Cosmo was already gone, and Silverman and Gillman, who were outside standing guard, were going to leave for the Navy base as soon as this meeting was over. “They’ll pick their team after we get there and we have a chance to assess the situation.”

They had only five Troubleshooters—Alyssa, Sam, Decker, Lindsey, and Tess. FBI agent Jules Cassidy—and Lopez—brought their total up to seven.

Two other FBI agents had been working—off record—for Jules, but they were guarding Karen Michaelson, who’d provided the key information as to Dave’s whereabouts. They couldn’t let her go, or even bring her to the local FBI office—not without the risk that the Agency would get wind of their discovery.

They still didn’t know if Agency head Doug Brendon was directly involved, or if Stafford’s access to Agency information was something he’d set up, illegally, via their computer system before he’d left.

Whatever the case, it left the TS team completely unable to tap any law enforcement—the FBI or even local police—for additional assistance.

They had to rely on their own limited ranks. And hope that other TS team members, such as Jones, whose plane had yet to land due to morning fog, would eventually arrive, like the cavalry to the rescue.

“Who’s staying behind with the civilians?” Lindsey asked. The civilians being the non-operatives, as in Tracy, Jo, and Sophia.

“Oh, no.” Sophia was quiet but certain. “I’m going.”

Alyssa opened her mouth to argue, which was when Deck stepped in.

“Let’s take a surveillance van,” he suggested. Their vans had heavy-duty armor. Anyone inside would be safe. “That way no one has to stay behind to stand guard. We’ve got limited manpower as it is, and we have no idea what kind of army Stafford employs.”

Tess chimed in. “I don’t think he’s got an army. I think he’s working with a small, tight group. Five, six... I’ve got seven possibles—former Agency operatives who have dropped off the map. Michaelson, by the way, previously worked out of the Agency office in Malaysia. My best guess is that he met Stafford through his connection to Hersek Khosa—the fifteen-million-dollar man.” She reeled in her tendency to distribute unnecessary information. “My point about this is that you can’t be invisible, the way Stafford’s been for so many years, if you’ve got a huge army.” Then she immediately countered herself. “But if we get there, and find out I’m wrong...?”

“We’re also not talking about leaving just one operative behind,” Decker reminded Alyssa and Jules both. “And frankly? Even if we leave two guards back here, I’m not going to be comfortable with that. Yeah, we did it earlier with Lopez and Lindsey. But we’ve been here for hours now and—”

“Excuse me.” Tracy spoke up, ready as usual to argue and even interrupt. “But I don’t think you should be worrying about unlikely scenarios. Take Sophia. I’ll stay here with Jo. We’ll lock the doors—”

“No.” Decker wasn’t going to let that happen. “Stafford knows that we’re here. It would piss me off royally if we got Dave back—only to lose Tracy or Dr. Heissman. And I do mean lose. And I don’t believe it’s an unlikely scenario. This is the man who blew up the Seaside Heights motel.”

With that, Tracy turned to tell Alyssa, “I agree with Deck—we definitely should come with, in one of the vans.”

Alyssa looked at Tess. “How do we move one of the surveillance vans without broadcasting that fact to Stafford?”

The vans were parked down at the back entrance to the building, where one of the pirated cameras was located.

Tess didn’t look happy. “It’ll take me, wow, at least forty minutes to find the footage I need to override that camera’s signal.”

The plan, as it currently stood, was to leave all of their cars in the front lot, in case one of Stafford’s gang did drive-by surveillance.

And as far as electronic surveillance via the pirated signal from the Troubleshooters security cameras, Tess had already used the magic of digital video editing to superimpose footage she’d found in their security archives of the sun rising—and the morning sunlight growing stronger as the fog dissipated—on the completely empty Troubleshooters parking lot, which included a clear shot of the building’s main entrance. She’d glued that footage over a Photoshopped-to-include-daylight digital image of all of their vehicles, just sitting there. Stafford and his cohorts would see that and—hopefully—assume they were all still here, scrambling to figure out who’d taken Dave.

Meanwhile, as the camera sent that false information, the Troubleshooters team would gear up and exit the building—as covertly as possible. They’d also be able to get back inside—undetected—if they needed to.

The plan was to move to the street, where they’d be met by Commander Koehl, who’d engineered the delivery of a passenger van from the base. He’d have his SUV, too.

“So we put the civilians in Koehl’s SUV,” Sam suggested. “With luck, it has tinted glass. It’s not optimal—”

“I don’t like it.” Alyssa turned to Tess. “Forty minutes?”

Tess stood up. “It’s the sunrise that’s killing us. If it were midnight, I’d be set. But the sun’s going to come up, and I’ve got to find footage that fits. A quiet, foggy morning, where all of the vans are in position right where they’re currently parked, with no movement in or out of that back door. It’s going to take me—”

“Send Lopez out for coffee,” Tracy spoke up again. She turned to the SEAL. “You can walk out the back door—let them see you go, let them watch you get into the van and drive away. The convenience store on the corner is open twenty-four hours; it’s where I go when the Starbucks is closed. It’ll take you three minutes to get there and back. You don’t even need to get coffee—just grab the paper trays and cups and lids. Tell Ronnie, the guy who works the late shift, that you’re a friend of mine and that I’ll be by later to explain. Then, when you come back here, you can park on the street, out of range of the cameras. Stafford might wonder what you did with the van, but I’d bet his gang’s more concerned with knowing where you are. And they’ll see you come back in, carrying coffee. One man leaves, one man comes back.”

And they’d have access to that van. Decker nodded. “It’s worth the gamble that Stafford doesn’t have the manpower to come out to investigate.”

“I agree,” Jules said. He’d been quiet up to this point. “Way to rock it, Tracy.”

Decker nodded to her, too. “Good idea.”

Her smile was beautiful, and as she met Decker’s eyes, there it was again. That spark, that warmth, that sense of faith that they were going to get Dave back, and then all would be right with the world.

Alyssa nodded at Lopez. “Three minutes. Go.”

Lindsey went, too, to secure the door behind him.

“I want body armor on everyone,” Alyssa announced. “And I mean everyone. Let’s do it. Someone grab gear for Lopez.”

“Make sure your radio headset works,” Tess chimed in as they headed for the equipment locker, adding, “Double-check it, people.”

Alyssa shouted out assignments. “Lindsey and Tess with Tracy and Jo; Deck, you’ve got Sophia. Get ’em into the van as quickly as possible. Lindsey, I want you driving, Tess shotgun. Deck, catch up to Sam—I want you riding with him.”

Decker could see, over in the corner, that Lindsey was helping Tracy put on a bulletproof vest. As if feeling his eyes on her, Tracy looked up.

Stay in the van, he told her, speaking clearly so that she could read his lips across the noisy room.

She pretended not to understand, giving him a big questioning face and mouthing, What?

He shook his head at her. She knew exactly what he’d said.

Tracy smiled at him. And her certainty, her total conviction that they were going to get Dave and bring him home, lit her from within and made her shine. But that wasn’t all she brought to the table. She had a resilience, a strength that he more than admired.

She wasn’t afraid of him. And if things went south, if they didn’t get Dave back, if the day didn’t end as it should, Decker knew that Tracy would, without a doubt, wrestle him to the ground and make him process it, and deal with it, and yeah, even cry about it, if he had to. Just as she’d promised she would.

And what he did next was really just a test, to see if she really couldn’t understand him. It was done on pure impulse. The words weren’t even voiced. He just moved his lips very slightly.

I love you.

Decker wanted to turn away after he said it, because she froze, her eyes huge and almost frightened in her face. And in that moment, he was afraid, too—that maybe she would run from him, screaming. God knows he would run from himself if he could. But he wasn’t a coward, so he made himself stand there and wait for her to respond.

His gift was the sweetest smile he’d ever seen in his entire life. But it was uncertain, as if she didn’t quite believe what she’d seen. And she said, again, What?

So he said it again—the thing that was most important for her to understand: Stay in the van.

This time she nodded. I will.

Jules tapped Deck’s arm as he went past, startling him. “We’re going to need you here, fully focused, Chief,” the FBI agent said. “Is Lopez back? Because we’re going to need medical supplies. I want to bring whatever we need to start IV antibiotics on Dave right away—even before an ambulance arrives.”

Deck knew that they couldn’t have an ambulance waiting. Calling one in advance could well tip Stafford off.

“Oh, and someone grab Tracy’s laptop,” Jules added, “in case Stafford decides that now’s the time he wants to contact us.”

Dave inched his way across the cold concrete of the basement floor, exploring the limited area that he could reach, picking out names for the baby.

Be quiet.... Be quiet....

He liked Marianne. Marianne Malkoff. It sounded like the name of a woman who could become President someday. Of course, he had no idea if the baby truly was a girl. She could be a boy. In which case Marianne wouldn’t work as well.

Be quiet....

He didn’t want to do that Dave Junior thing. He knew kids, growing up, who were saddled with their fathers’ names, and it had never seemed quite fair. More than half the time they went running to their mother, only to find out that she was calling their dad instead.

Of course, if their dad were dead? Then it could work.

Dave heard footsteps overhead, and he rolled back to the center of the floor where they’d left him. He closed his eyes, willing himself unconscious.

But it was not to be.

A bucket of water in his face—a refreshing change from having it jammed down his throat—made him gasp and cough.

When he let the water drip from his hair and face, and he opened his eyes, there were still only four of them. And he wished that they hadn’t taken his cell phone out of his pocket, so that he could call Decker and say, You know how I’m always bitching about all you SEALs and former SEALs? Well, I apologize. Because you and Sam and Tom and Cosmo could absolutely make yourselves useful. You could kick down the door of this crappily built house in a heartbeat, and get me the hell out of here.

He’d seen and heard only four men, holding him here. The same four men. Which didn’t mean there weren’t more outside.

Although, he’d spent quite some time listening to the sound of footfalls overhead, to the water running through the pipes, to the toilet flushes—and he would’ve bet the bank that these four were it.

And the one in charge—the older, paunchy man—was losing the confidence of the others. Dave had made note, right away, of the fact that the guy with the glasses was positively spooked.

It was just a matter of time before he made some excuse—gotta pick up a pizza or run to the drugstore—and vanished into the night.

Or day. It was hard to tell down here exactly what time it was.

But regardless of the movement of the earth and the position of the sun and the stars in the sky, whenever the whole gang joined Dave here in the basement, it was time for only one thing.

A little game called No Way, No How. His opponents, sadly, still believed it was called Everyone Has a Limit—Let’s Find Dave’s. They’d yet to comprehend that his was death.

It always started the same way. With a little friendly conversation. With an invitation to sit like a person in a chair.

Well, not quite like a person, since his hands were cuffed behind his back, and it was getting harder and harder—as he became more and more ill—to do much of anything besides lie on the floor.

So as Paunchy watched, Glasses, ugly guy, and the sadistic dreamboat manhandled him up, wrenching his elbows so that his cuffed hands went behind the back of the chair, so that his arms held him there, in place. Humiliating and painful, but effective.

“How are you doing, Dave? Are you ready to talk to us?”

“I’m doing just great, thanks, but my throat’s a little sore so I should probably save my voice. How are you?”

“We’re doing much better now that we have Sophia.”

Words to make his blood pressure rise. But he knew if they had her, they would show, not tell. “Sophia. Sophia. I don’t think I know a Sophia. But I do know a lot of Navy SEALs, and they are going to track you down and kill you. In the middle of the night. You know, you can go high-tech, you can go guards—” He aimed his words at the guy with glasses, because he knew the threat was freaking him out.

“Shall we bring Sophia down here?”

“—but it doesn’t matter, because they’re like phantoms. They’ll get into your bedroom and you won’t even wake up. Well, not until your throat’s slit and you’re—”

This was where he usually got slapped, hard enough to rattle his fever-riddled brain, and sure enough, he wasn’t disappointed.

But he kept going, “—bleeding out.”

“Just fucking kill him!” Glasses was losing it.

“You’re going to give us what we want to know, sooner or later, Dave. So just tell me, where’s James Nash?”

Silence also worked, since Dave’s goal was to run Glasses off, not get another knife in the gut. Because the stab wound he already had was plenty bad enough, thanks.

“This all ends, Dave, right here, right now. All you have to do is tell me where he is.”

“Is that supposed to be a philosophical question? Because everyone knows that James Nash is dead. I don’t believe in hell, and even if I’m wrong, he was a good man, so I’m sure he wouldn’t go there, so... I’m going to go with... he’s in an urn on his girlfriend’s fireplace mantel.”

That got him a punch from Sadistic McDreamy, right where his bandage was—assuming his bandage had stayed on through the last round of waterboarding. It was impossible to check with his hands cuffed they way they were, even when he was left alone down here.

This time the pain from the blow didn’t just make his eyes water, it made the world dance and spark and sputter and fade and...

Sophia was there—right at the edge of his vision.

“Shh. Be quiet,” she said, smiling in that way that she had that always telegraphed her secret plan to get him naked, ASAP. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that her plan was never much of a secret due to that smile. She held out her hand. “Come on.”

“I can’t,” he said. “I’m a little tied up at the moment. Bah-dump bump.”

“No,” she said. “Come on. Come on, Dave. But, shh! Be quiet.”

He reached for her hand, but she shimmered and vanished, and he realized he was back on the floor, alone in the basement. He was soaking wet and shivering from the cold—they must’ve waterboarded him again, but he remembered none of it.

Which kind of defeated the purpose. He was supposed to fear it, and talk to keep them from doing it again.

Dawn was leaking in a strip of window that was too small for him to squeeze through, even without his hands and feet bound, without him being tethered to a workbench that was built into the wall and extremely solid. And he knew it was the sunlight that had caught his eye and made him imagine Sophia.

And yet her voice whispered in his ear. Come on. Come on, Dave....

And he realized they’d cuffed his hands in front of him to lay him back on that bench, and they’d failed to switch the cuffs around after they were done—no doubt assuming he was too weak, too ill, too broken to be much of a threat.

They’d still tethered him, tying a rope from his feet to that workbench they used, along with copious amounts of water, to persuade him to talk.

With his hands in front he could untie that rope, but his feet were locked together with plastic bands that he’d need a knife to cut through.

He couldn’t get his eyes to focus quite right, and his hands were numb, his fingers thick and useless. Still, he was alive. He was breathing. And he wanted, more than anything on earth, to see Sophia again.

He wanted to meet little Marianne.

So he grit his teeth and he set to work.

Sophia’s phone rang in the parking lot.

She’d set it on silent, but it was in her pocket so she felt it vibrate. She pulled it out and—

Decker nearly tripped over her. “Don’t stop moving—”

“I’m getting a call from Dave’s cell phone,” she told him.

He pulled her back over to the building, where Sam was locking the place up. He held a finger to his lips and gave Sam the hand signal for go. Sam understood exactly what was happening and gave the international signal for call me as he nodded and hurried to the vehicles, even as Sophia pushed talk.

“Dave?” she asked, knowing it wasn’t him, it couldn’t be, as she pushed the speaker button so that Decker could hear, too.

But they’d tried, with the e-mail they’d sent, to make Sophia sound like she was in completely over her head, and out of her league.

“No,” said a male voice. “And I’m not with Dave, so your friends shouldn’t bother tracing this call. And even if they do? I’m on the move and I’m keeping this short. They won’t find me, and Dave will die. One phone call from me, and he’s dead, do you understand?”

And okay, she was in completely over her head. Her hands were shaking as she looked at Decker, who was the embodiment of steadiness and calm. He nodded encouragement and mouthed the words proof of life.

“Yes,” she said, and she didn’t have to force the wobble in her voice. “I understand. But I need to talk to him. To make sure he’s all right.”

“He’s not all right,” the man said. “And he’ll be less all right if you continue with this bullshit attempt to negotiate. We have him, you want him. You’ll do what we say and you’ll do it now or he’s dead. You stall or argue, he’s dead. You tell anyone about this phone call, he’s dead. You say anything to me but Yes, I understand, he’s dead. Do you understand?”

Sophia couldn’t help it, she started to cry. “Yes, I understand.”

“You make an excuse, and you leave—by yourself,” the man said. “We know where you are, we’re watching. Anyone other than you gets into your car, Dave is dead. Anyone leaves the building after you, Dave is dead. We’re monitoring calls, both from your cell phone and from the Troubleshooters office. Anyone makes a call about this, Dave is dead. Your friends are going to tell you that I’m bluffing, that we don’t have the technology to do that, but we do. The choice of whom to believe is yours, but if you believe them? Dave is dead.”

Decker nodded his encouragement, and through a tight throat and frozen lips, Sophia managed to say the words, “Yes, I understand.”

“Winston Park,” the man said. “Drive completely around the park—make a full circuit before you pull over and park on Barrett Boulevard. There’s a webcam near the fountain. When we see you, we’ll call with further instructions. You have ten minutes to get there.”

“Ten minutes!” Sophia said. “I mean, yes, I understand, but—”

The connection had been cut.

“We can do this,” Decker said, despite the fact that Winston Park was in the dead opposite direction from the place they believed Dave was being held. But he was already unlocking the front door, his sat phone to his ear as he called Tess.

“Get moving,” he said into his phone. “We’ve been contacted by the kidnappers. I’ve got Sophia—we’ll catch up. We’re shutting down the bogus signal to the security cameras. No one should come back until this is over, or until they contact me—spread the word—but first tell me how the hell to do this.”

After Tess climbed in, Lindsey pulled the surveillance van away from the curb.

“Wait,” Tracy said. “Where’s Sophia?”

And Deck? Where was Deck? She was counting on getting at least another glimpse of him as he delivered Sophia to the van. She wanted to look into his eyes and see if she’d been hallucinating when she’d seen him say what she thought he’d said.

She didn’t even dare to think it—that he might actually love her, too. True, he’d made clear his intention. She knew without a doubt that after this was over, after Dave was safe, she and Decker were going to spend a significant amount of time locked, alone, in her apartment.

She was guessing it would be several days, at first. Then, he’d come home with her every night after work, when he wasn’t OCONUS. And after a few weeks had passed, after the sense of urgency wasn’t quite so fierce, they’d fall into a comfortable pattern where he’d visit a few times a week and maybe stay over on the weekend.

Tracy had been ready for that. She’d been willing and even content with the idea that her relationship with this incredible man would last only as long as it lasted. She’d resigned herself to the fact that, having completely fallen for him, she was going to end up hurt.

But that was far into the future—far enough to push away, out of sight and out of mind.

But then he’d gone and said what he’d said—maybe. He might’ve been saying I love zoos. Or I love shoes. Or I lurk, too. But her twisted sense of perception had seen it as the big proclamation with love as the verb, and now she was filled with the kind of wanting that could, way too quickly, turn desperate and unattractive and painfully needy.

And, if she weren’t careful, everything she said or did would telegraph her single-minded goal, which was please, please, please love me forever.

So she swallowed her question—Where’s Decker?—aware that Jo Heissman was sitting quietly behind her, and instead asked Lindsey, “What’s going on?”

Lindsey and Tess were both talking on their sat phones.

“Uh-huh,” Lindsey said as she drove. Tracy couldn’t keep herself from turning in her seat to watch out the rear window as they left TS HQ behind.

“The program is running on a laptop that I’ve hooked into the main system,” Tess was saying. “It’s on my desk, in my office.”

“Uh-huh,” Lindsey said again. “Roger that, ma’am. We’re on the move.” She looked at both Tracy and Jo in the rearview. “Alyssa said that Deck said to get moving. Sophia’s been contacted by the kidnappers. They’re dealing with that.”

“Dealing?” Tracy asked. “How exactly are they dealing?”

Decker couldn’t get the fucking computer to work.

He had Tess on the phone, on speaker so Sophia could hear her, too, and she was saying something about the system parameters and how her laptop was connected to the main computer and, Jesus, time was running out.

He interrupted her. “If I simply pull the plug—if I disconnect your laptop from the main system—will that do the trick?”

“Well, yes, but you’re not going to get it up and running again by—”

“If I don’t go out there, right now,” Sophia spoke over Tess, “if they don’t see me on that camera, in the parking lot? They’re going to kill Dave.” She grabbed and pulled before Decker could stop her.

“Wait,” he said, but it was too late.

“Oh, no.” She immediately realized her mistake. She should have let Deck go out first, so he could hide in her car. “Oh, shit.”

“Tess, I gotta go.” Deck hung up his phone. “Okay,” he told Sophia as he hustled her to the door. “It’s okay. The north side of this building has a blind spot between two cameras.” She knew this—they’d all helped design the security system here at the Troubleshooters office. They’d put in a blind spot for this very reason—as an alternative escape route. “I’ll go out the conference room window.”

“Those windows don’t open,” she told him.

“Every window,” Decker said, “opens. Go—take a left out of the drive, pull over in front of the hydrant. I’ll meet you out there.”

She nodded and pushed open the door.

“Soph,” he said, and she turned back. “Wait there for me. I’m right behind you. Do not leave without me, do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand,” she said—it was the phrase of the hour—and went out the door.

Jimmy got a call from Tom Paoletti on the secure phone line, with an update on Ken Karmody’s condition. The SEAL had survived his surgery and was in ICU. He wasn’t out of danger, but at least they’d finished sewing him back together.

“I’m still here in the hospital, too,” the CO said. “It’s driving me frigging nuts. I’d walk out but... like you, I’m under the protective eye of guards.”

“I don’t know what’s worse,” Jimmy admitted. “Getting updates or not getting updates.” He laughed. “Tess keeps calling me with little jobs to do. Research. I’m working support for her.”

“She’s a good operative,” Tom said.

“Yes,” Jimmy agreed. “She is. And I’m sorry, sir, I’ve got to go—she’s calling me right now.” He clicked over. “Yeah.”

“www.WinstonPark.org,” Tess said. “Click on their webcam. What do you see?”

Decker grabbed a length of mountain-climbing rope from the equipment locker, digging for the key to the section that was kept double-locked—the section where the C-4 was stored.

They didn’t keep much of it on hand—the building’s insurance policy didn’t allow it. But they kept enough.

And right now he didn’t need much. He tore off a chunk—it was like putty or modeling clay—and grabbed a fuse and blasting cap, then locked the cabinet back up. As he headed for the conference room—and the window in question—he rolled the explosive in his hands like he was making a Play-Doh snake for Charlie Paoletti or Haley Starrett.

It was strange to think that Sophia was going to have a child, that she was pregnant. And that, in turn, made him think about something Tracy had said, just a few days back—Jesus, it seemed like a lifetime ago. But she’d accused Decker of imagining Dave and Sophia’s relationship as being G-rated, and yeah, he definitely had. Because he couldn’t think about Sophia having sex with anyone without thinking about all of the pain and abuse she’d lived through in the months after Dimitri had died. And now he had that added image of Dimitri’s head on the table beside her bed—thanks so much, Dave.

And Jesus, Dave was a better man than he was, to be able to look past all that horror, to just wipe it away and be able and willing to start fresh. But Dave truly loved her. Dave had always loved Sophia, enough to get past anything.

Deck put the strips of the C-4 on the window—it wouldn’t take much, and it didn’t have to be artful—and he attached the fuse, which didn’t have to be very long.

“Fire in the hole.” It was stupid to say it aloud when he was alone, but say it he did, after lighting the fuse and ducking into the hall. He used the time to secure the end of the rope around the entire conference room door and...

Poof. Cssssssh.

The explosion was junior-sized—most of the noise came from the window shattering, and even that seemed subdued. It had broken as he wanted it to—inward—and he crunched over the glass on the floor as he tested the rope.

It held against his weight, so he went out the window and down the side of the building, and ran out into the street toward Sophia’s waiting car.

“Where’s Winston Park?” Jules asked. “What’s the terrain?”

Dawn had broken, giving the fog an unnatural, almost alien glow as Alyssa looked into the backseat where Jules and Sam were sitting as they rode with Commander Koehl in his SUV.

Which was kind of weird. Koehl’s leadership style was vastly different from Jules’s. He was one of those I am God, obey me–type commanders.

But Koehl shook his head now, as did Alyssa. “I don’t know it,” he said.

Sam did. “I took Haley and Charlie over there—it’s near the 5, south of the Nature Center. It’s not big like Mission Trails or Balboa. It’s a city park. Fountain in the middle, playground, chess tables, sidewalks, and lawn. A coupla blocks long at the most, little parking area at one end. Really little—pretty useless—but there’s street parking. You can pretty much drive around the park until a spot opens. I think there’s one of those old-time bandstand stage things near the fountain, although they might set it up and take it down as needed. We went to see some kind of dog show—an agility contest—and they were using the stage to give out the awards.”

“We should call Decker with that information,” Jules said.

“Deck knows the park—we ran into him there,” Sam said. Both Alyssa and Jules looked at him, so he shrugged and explained. “He told me he volunteers at a local animal shelter. He’d brought one of their dogs out to compete, maybe find her a home.”

And okay, that wasn’t the most surprising thing about Decker that Jules had discovered today, but it was pretty close.

Alyssa wasn’t quite as amazed. And she was, understandably, a little freaked out by her decision not to divert any additional support to back up Decker and Sophia. But how could she? They didn’t have the personnel to split into two groups—one of them about to attempt the take-down of a not-yet-surveilled location.

As it was, Sam was going to need to replace Decker as his second-in-command. It shouldn’t be Jules, because if something went wrong, he was needed to call in the local FBI.

Which he couldn’t do in advance, because that information would be received by the Agency—God, he hated this. But one thing he was going to love? After this was over, he was going to love walking into the Agency and arresting Doug Brendon’s ass. Tess had been pretty certain that the Agency head was at least loosely involved. The man had—at least—participated in a cover-up.

Alyssa was back on the phone with both Lindsey and Tess. “Any word from Jones?”

“Why did Stafford call Sophia now?” Sam mused aloud. “Unless they know we’re coming and they’re trying to delay or divert us.”

“Maybe they were waiting for dawn,” Jules said. “Decker said they mentioned the park’s webcam. You ever look at a webcam shot at night? Not much to see.” He aimed his words at the CO. “Excuse me, sir, can this thing move any faster?”

Koehl stepped on the gas even as he said, “There’s no way we’re going to get there, do the surveillance we need, and execute the take-down within that ten-minute time frame.” But he was telling them what they already knew.

Sam, meanwhile, was playing devil’s advocate. “Okay, so Sophia shows up at the park. What’s to keep ’em from taking a sniper shot?”

“They don’t want to kill her.” Jules was virtually certain. “Dave’s not talking. They want her as leverage.”

“So they’re going to try to grab her.”

“Yup.”

“She better fucking not get out of her car.”

“Whatever happens,” Decker told Sophia as they sped toward Winston Park, “whatever they say, whatever they tell you, do not get out of this car.”

She nodded, her knuckles nearly white on the steering wheel as she drove.

“I want to hear you say it,” he said. “I will not get out of the car.”

“I will not get out of the car.”

“What you need to do is stall,” he told her, but she didn’t respond. “Sophia, I’m not convinced you’re listening to me. They’re not going to kill Dave, okay? They’re going to keep him alive, because they know if he’s dead you’re not going to help them. You have the power here. So you circle the park. You keep moving. And you tell them that you want proof of life, and that they’re going to have to be on your timetable now. Tell them to call you back in ten minutes, and this time you want to hear Dave’s voice on the phone. Tell them that you want to talk to him. He’s going to have to answer your questions so that you know it’s not just a recording. You tell them all that, okay?”

She nodded.

“Take it slowly when you’re talking,” he said. “Repeat yourself. We’re buying time. And right now, we’re doing great on our travel time,” he tried to reassure her.

His phone rang. It was Nash. “Yeah.”

“I am here, in Safety Central, looking right now at the view from the webcam over at beautiful, downtown Winston Park.”

Decker put his phone on speaker so that Sophia could hear Nash, too. “Tell me more.”

“The camera’s positioned on top of what looks like some kind of statue in the middle of some kind of fountain,” Nash continued. “It’s pretty fucking stupid—every few minutes the fountain shoots its wad and the water completely obscures the view. I don’t know, maybe it’s supposed to be artistic, but I’m finding it annoying.”

“Can you see the cars on the street? And you’re on speaker, by the way, so try your best to keep it clean.”

“Yes, I can see the cars—but only on Fremont Street. Barrett, where they want Sophia to park, is out of the webcam’s range,” Nash reported. “And hello, Sophia. By the way, I’m not dead.”

She actually smiled at that. “Yes, I heard a rumor about that.”

Nash continued. “I can not only see the cars on the street, I can see into them. The quality of this camera is pretty intense. High-def. If you hide in Sophia’s car, anywhere but in the trunk? They’re going to see you. Or the suspicious-looking blanket that you use to cover yourself.”

“You’re not hiding in the car,” Sophia told Decker. “I won’t risk that.”

He nodded and told them both, “I’m going to get out three blocks from the park.” He dug in her glove compartment and came up with a map. “I want you to pull over, a block after that, and look at this map as if you’re lost. Let me go past you. Give me enough time to get in place.”

She nodded, but Decker wasn’t convinced she was going to remember anything he said. So he signed off with Nash, and tried to bring her back into a world where there was more than just her anxiety and fear.

“When’s the baby due?”

She glanced at him as if he’d spoken in Japanese.

“The baby,” he said again. “Your baby. Dave’s baby. How long until—”

“I don’t know exactly,” she said. “I haven’t been to the doctor yet, but... Early April?”

“Dave must be over the moon.”

“He is.” Sophia smiled at that, but her smile faded rapidly. “Deck, if Alyssa calls to say that Dave’s not there—”

“If he’s not there,” Deck said quietly, “then we’ll find out where he is, and we’ll go there to get him, okay? We’re going to find him.”

She nodded. Then she said, “I’m not afraid.”

“That’s good,” he told her.

“But if he doesn’t get to a hospital, he’s going to die.”

“Yeah, well, Dave’s pretty tough,” Decker said. “And he’s got an awful lot to live for.”

“I know how serious this is,” she said just as quietly. “I read the lab report. I know this could end badly. And I know if we don’t find him this morning, his chances—” She cut herself off as she pulled up to a red light. She turned and looked at him. “Sometimes, for such a smart man, Dave can be pretty idiotic. That last bit that he wrote in his letter to you... As if he could die and you could just step into my life, as if you and he were inter-changeable—”

“He wants you to be happy,” Decker said. “That’s all he’s ever wanted. I think he must’ve loved you, Sophia, from the moment he met you.”

Sophia nodded. “That doesn’t make him any less of an idiot, to think...” The light turned green and she stepped on the gas. “Lindsey told me about you and Tracy.”

“Lindsey did,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to say. Lindsey, who had been there in the office when Decker and Tracy had... They’d tried to be quiet, still....

But when Sophia turned and smiled at him, her smile seemed more genuine, and there was real life and sparkle in her eyes. “Are you actually blushing?”

He looked out the window. Just a few more blocks. “I might be.”

“She’s smart and she’s funny and she’s beautiful and very sexy—”

“She sees me for who I am,” Decker interrupted. “And she treats me like a man. Like an equal. Not some hero or... I don’t know what. She’s not afraid of me. She says what she thinks, she never pulls her punches and... I like the way she needs me. I really do. It’s clean and... honest.”

“And guilt-free,” Sophia added.

He nodded. “Yeah, that’s part of it. It’s complicated—like every relationship is. But I can relax around her.” He searched for the right words. “I feel... safe when I’m with her.”

“It’s weird,” she said. “I’m both jealous... and not. Because I’m safe, too, when I’m with Dave.” Her lips trembled and tears filled her eyes. “Deck, I can’t lose him. I can’t.”

“We’ll find him,” he promised her. “Just remember to stall, okay? We’re getting close—you better pull over and let me out.”

Sophia signaled and pulled to the curb. “Whatever happens,” she said, wiping her eyes with the heels of her hands, “I’m glad that you’re happy. I really, truly am.”

“Whatever happens,” Decker told her, “don’t get out of this car.”